Flying the Strand | Part 4, Flattops in the Roadstead

Day 3: End of the Pilgrimage

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
01 Aug 2023	N21481	FFA (Kill Devil Hills, NC) - W75 (Saluda, VA) - SDC (Sodus, NY)	4.4	2690.0

Looking north after departure from First Flight Airport.

One way to beat the Carolina heat is to be airborne relatively early in the morning. Another way is to eliminate the hike to the airport in favor of an Uber ride. After doing both, we set course from First Flight Airport to Hummel Field (W75) for breakfast on the edge of the Rappahannock River in Saluda, VA. It was really just another morning $100 pancake flight with the WFC despite the unusual starting point.

Awkward selfie.

I toyed with blasphemy by wearing my Curtiss Museum shirt to the Wright Brothers National Memorial. But I am confident that everything is fine. After all, their companies were combined into one big happy Curtiss-Wright company in 1929 anyway, right?

Bodie Island

Tom and I followed the other three aircraft north. I noticed that Devil 2, one of NAS Oceana's turboprop T-34s, was cruising around the area as we departed; Eight Five X-Ray flew right over him.

Hampton Roads

After navigating around a buildup, our course to Hummel Field put us directly over the top of Norfolk, VA.

Downtown Norfolk seen through the clouds.

Norfolk is situated on the Hampton Roads (derived from "roadstead"), one of the largest natural harbors in the world. 

We observed shipping containers being offloaded from cargo ships at the Norfolk International Terminal.

Naval Station Norfolk is considered the largest naval complex in the world and is the home port for the US Navy's Atlantic fleet. Coincidentally and fortuitously, our flight to Hummel took us directly over the massive piers of the naval station.

I was impressed to see three of the ten existing Nimitz-class nuclear powered aircraft carriers in port. From left to right, they were the USS George Washington (CVN-73), the USS George HW Bush (CVN-77), and the USS Dwight D Eisenhower (CVN-69).

Docked to the same pier as the Dwight D Eisenhower was the USS Wasp (LHD-1, where LHD stands for "landing helicopter dock"). The Wasp class of light aircraft carriers can transport helicopters, Ospreys, or other V/STOL (vertical/short take-off and landing) aircraft like the Harrier II or the F-35B Lightning II. It is one of seven such carriers on active duty.

Anyone up for a short field landing? I suspect that the US Navy would be rightfully unimpressed and unamused by such an attempt.

A container ship cruising through Hampton Roads. That's a lot of Mega Blocks!

On the descent for Hummel Field.

Grass Roots

Hummel Field (airport #265) is a wonderful grass roots kind of place and simply has a great vibe. As we approached, aircraft were operating to and from the airport, with Unicom chatter functioning on a first name basis. We found a Grumman pilot to be especially challenging to understand from the combined effects of a scratchy radio and a Virginia drawl.

"Your radio sounds a little rough, Mike," advised one of the local pilots. It really did, but my Yankee ear also struggled with Mike's elocution.

A survey crew working on the runway was forced to gather their equipment and move off to the side to allow individual take-off and landing operations. We were reminded of the street hockey scene from the Wayne's World movie. "Car! (pause) Game on!"

Warrior 481, One Delta Tango, and Four Four Papa parked on the grass at Hummel.

We arrived expecting a relatively short 2100 paved runway, but it appeared that the runway had been lengthened recently and the FAA documentation had simply not caught up yet.

Eight Five X-Ray 💓 Hummel Field.

With the airplanes parked, we walked to the southeast corner of the field in search of the Pilot House Inn, a motel with accompanying restaurant and banquet room.

Although clearly aviation themed, the exterior of the place did not present particularly well. Some of us had our doubts, but these were completely unfounded. The service was friendly and the food was excellent. It was a great place for a late breakfast on the return home.

"Put 'em up! Put 'em up!"

The thing about flying with Tom is that he picks fights everywhere he goes. (Not really, but that lion was obviously spoiling for a fight.)

Closure

During our stop on Tangier Island two days prior, we learned about Dr. David Buell Nichols, otherwise known as Dr. Copter. For 30 years worth of Thursdays, Dr. Copter flew to Tangier Island and provided medical care to its seafaring residents. Initially flying a Cessna 182, he earned his nickname after making the switch to a Robinson R44 helicopter.

What we did not realize was that Hummel Field was Dr. Copter's home base. When the good doctor passed away in 2010, AOPA sponsored matching granite monuments at Hummel and Tangier in his honor.

As we pondered the granite memorial, a Fairchild PT-19 WWII military trainer taxied past. This resident of Hummel Field offers rides for those seeking an open cockpit experience along the banks of the Rappahannock.

Scott fuels Eight Five X-Ray as the PT-19 taxies past.

A Cub on bush wheels taxies for departure on the grass next to Hummel's paved runway.

When I finished fueling Warrior 481, an old-timer in a nearby pickup truck waved and shouted something at me that I could not hear over the sound of Ed's engine idling. I trotted over to see what he wanted.

"Are all you guys here together?" he asked. I explained about our three day trip to the Outer Banks and back as a group. He asked where we were based.

"Rochester, NY," I answered, rounding off to the nearest metropolitan area the way I usually do.

"Ah," he said. "Monroe County!"

Reacting to my expression of utter surprise, he added, "You did not expect me to say that, did you?" He went on to identify himself as a retired airline pilot who used to fly into Rochester often. He was not simply identifying the county where Rochester is located (which would have been an obscure bit of trivia), but rather naming Rochester's commercial airport as it was known before it became Greater Rochester International in 1987.

"There used to be a great place for clam chowder near Kodak," he reminisced. "But you probably know more about that than I do." I did not. I confessed that Rochester was not a place that struck me as a hot spot for clam chowder. He laughed and wished us well on our journey home.

You just never know who you're going to meet at these little airports.

Divergence

From Hummel, our four aircraft split up for the first time in three days. Dan departed to the west in One Delta Tango bound for Winchester, VA. Scott, Kim, and Gilead also took a westerly VFR route around the Washington DC SFRA for their return to Sodus in Eight Five X-Ray, though a weather diversion to Hagerstown, MD delayed their return. Ed launched VFR to the east around the Washington DC SFRA for his return to Sodus. I filed IFR with an airway route (CORET V286 FAGED T291 SEG T445 BEEPS), a clearance that Tom and I picked up in the air from Pax River. ATC amended our route a few times, but we were generally within a few miles of Ed for most of the flight and ultimately cleared direct to Sodus before crossing into New York state.

Lane Memorial Bay Bridge outside of Baltimore, MD.

An eye-catching interchange east of Baltimore.

Crossing the Susquehanna River over Harrisburg, PA.

The Susquehanna River south of Williamsport, PA.

We were among the clouds for much of the route home, but only logged about 0.3 hours in IMC. Haze dominated our view of the world beyond Warrior 481's windows and the gray vistas rarely inspired any photography. Obviously, the sightseeing highlight of our day occurred that morning over Norfolk.

With a sighting of Keuka Lake, we had officially returned to the Finger Lakes region and home.

Debrief

As a Williamson Flying Club fly-out event, this was our most ambitious effort to date. Four airplanes carried seven to eight people (depending on whether Dave was with us) 1130 total nautical miles on a trip that spanned multiple states over three days. We had ridiculously good fortune with the weather and Tom was a key element of our contingency plan. With Tom as an additional instrument-rated pilot, we had the ability to move all four aircraft through the IFR system had weather necessitated it. We landed at six airports, four of them new to me (Tangier, Chesapeake, Billy Mitchell, and Hummel), and two of them commonly considered as bucket list items for pilots (Tangier and First Flight). We sampled good food, visited beautiful beaches, paid our respects to the Wright Brothers for their advancement of aeronautics, saw a portion of our mighty naval fleet, encountered some devils in the former haunts of pirates, and absorbed the stunning natural beauty of the fragile Outer Banks strand. In addition to being our most ambitious fly-out to date, it was also a massive success!

Extra kudos go to Dan who planned the whole endeavor. As the only member of the expedition with experience flying into First Flight and Ocracoke, I served as an advisor, but Dan did the heavy lifting in terms of planning. That included an expansive, but realistic itinerary with just the right amount of down time. Hummel was a particularly excellent find. Because of Dan's planning, this was a great experience for all!